Let me begin by thanking you for your hard work and the spirit
of cooperation thats marked this legislative session. Much
work remains to be done but Im confident thisll be
remembered as a productive session of the General Assembly. You
have before you a landmark piece of legislation, the first major
piece of criminal justice legislation in a quarter of a century.
Many parts of this bill are a product of input from members of
the General Assembly and the Criminal Justice Response Team I
commissioned last year to study comprehensively our justice
system. With this bill, weve tried to strike a balance,
getting tough on violent criminals, while recognizing that many
of them need treatment if theyre going to stay out of
prison. Theres a focus on a statewide program of juvenile
detention, and development of locally based prevention and early
intervention programs for juveniles. Weve reached out to
victims of crime in unprecedented ways, providing for an improved
system of crime victim compensation and the right to speak out in
court. Weve created a victim-witness protection program for
victims whose safetys in danger as a result of cooperating
with the police and prosecutors and provided that victims of
mentally ill violent criminals will receive notification when
those offenders are released from involuntary commitment.
Weve proposed that all law enforcement officers, the brave
men and women who put their lives on the line for us every day,
will be trained and recognized as the professionals they are
through the process of certification and improved compensation.
We prepare our criminal justice system for the 21st Century with
information technology to link law enforcement agencies,
prosecutors, the courts and corrections so that these criminal
justice agencies will have accurate, real time access to
information critical to the performance of their jobs. The bill
codifies pretrial diversion and makes it uniform throughout the
state, so our prosecutors can turn around people whove made
mistakes but can be set back on the path of law-abiding citizens.
And, it creates the Criminal Justice Council which will have
representatives of all three branches of government for
comprehensive and ongoing study of crime in Kentucky, and
long-term planning so we can respond with deliberation to the
problems of crime that emerge in our state. But there are two
important pieces of this bill that I want to place additional
focus on today: Ethnic intimidation and gang crime. Crimes of
hatred should not be tolerated in Kentucky. When a crime is
committed because the criminal doesnt like the color of the
victims skin, or place of birth, something worse than a
crime has been committed. The fundamental basis of our country,
the rights that our ancestors fought and died for, are assaulted.
A burning cross or a church burned because of racial hatred is
not a simple arson or criminal mischief case. We need to send the
message that crime committed in the name of bigotry and
intolerance strikes at the fiber of our society and will be
punished to the maximum extent possible. The ethnic intimidation
portions of this bill are the product of an exhaustive study by a
Task Force I appointed in 1996 chaired by Attorney General
Chandler. This group, composed of members of the state and
federal law enforcement community and the church community,
recommended this legislation in the wake of the church burnings
and other acts of racial hatred that occurred in 1995 and 1996. I
urge you to follow the lead of Congress and many other states and
endorse these new penalties for crimes of ethnic intimidation .We
must also acknowledge that gangs are taking a bigger and bigger
toll in Kentucky. We could stick our heads in the sand, deny that
theres a problem, claim that gangs are only an urban issue,
and complain that anti-gang measures target minority communities.
The truth is that gangs exist throughout the state, their numbers
are growing and their members and victims are racially diverse.
By far, most of their victims are children recruited for
membership or punished for refusing to join a gang. And let me
tell you I know from personal experience there are gangs in
Pikeville and as with many cases, our familys not immune
from it. Make no mistake: this is not an issue of race; it is an
issue of drugs. Unless we have the fortitude to stand and
deliver, to acknowledge the problems and to give prosecutors the
tools they need to address gang crime now, the blame will rest on
our shoulders. We elect our prosecutors to protect society from
criminals. We should heed their calls to enact strong anti-gang
legislation so that all children can wait at the bus stop without
fear of assault because their shirts are the wrong color, they
dont throw gang signs or they wont join the gang. We
have the power and the responsibility to do something about this
problem now, before it becomes an unmanageable statewide problem.
We wont have this chance, the chance to make changes in our
laws for the protection of our children and of our citizens, for
another 2 years. For every victim of ethnic intimidation, for
every victim of gang-related crime, 2 years is too long to wait.
For many, who may be victims of gang violence it will be too
late. Help me and help our citizens and law enforcement address
these problems by passing the strong crime bill which we have
submitted for your consideration.